Compression connectors for connecting together two or more electrical conductors are well-known. Connectors such as these typically accommodate stripped electrical conductors in individual connector nests. A suitable crimping tool is used to crimp the connector around the conductors. Many of these compression-type connectors are of the H-tap variety, that is the connector body has an H-shaped cross section. H-taps provide upper and lower conductor nests, each nest being defined by a bottom wall and opposed upstanding sidewalls. The sidewalls are adapted to be deformed upon application of a crimping force applied by a crimping tool to draw the sidewalls around the conductor to thereby compress the conductor within the nest of the H-tap.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,964,585, an H-tap compression connector is shown. The upper ends of the sidewalls are dimensioned to have relatively equal lengths so that upon crimping, the upper edges may not completely encircle the conductor. An attempt to lengthen the sidewalls could result in the sidewalls contacting each other during crimping prior to encircling the conductor thereby resulting in an ineffective crimp.
Attempts to solve this problem are seen in U.S. Pat. No. 3,235,654 where a bendable tab is provided at the outer edge of one of the sidewalls. Once the conductor is inserted in the nest the bendable tab may be manually folded over the conductor so that during crimping the conductor is entirely enclosed. Other examples of such connectors are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,354,517, 3,330,903 and 3,322,888.
Improvements in bendable tab H-taps are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,236,938. The bendable tab is modified to include a longitudinal ridge on the exterior surface thereof. This assures that the tab is bent inwardly of the opposed sidewall.
However, it can be seen that employing extending bendable tabs such as those described above greatly increases the cost of the connector as well as complicates the crimping operation by interposing the installer-dependent step of manually bending the tab prior to crimping.
A further attempt to provide a completely enclosed crimp in an H-tap is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,162,615 where an H-tap is provided having upstanding sidewalls of sufficient length to entirely encircle the conductor. In order to avoid the problem of the walls engaging one another prior to full crimping, the '615 provides one sidewall having an inwardly curled upper extent. Thus, upon application of a crimping force, the inwardly curled extent will cause the one sidewall to deform prior to the other sidewall so that the sidewalls overlap about the conductor. While this solves the problem of encircling the conductor, it has been found that the construction shown in the '615 patent is limited in the range of conductor sizes which may be accommodated therein. Also, the curled upper extent may unduly restrict conductor insertion access to the nest.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide a compression connector which will permit the reliable overlapping of the sidewalls of the nest during crimping and accommodate a range of conductor sizes therein.